Letters to the Editor: Feb. 3

While I agree at certain times of the year, such as Christmas when drinking drivers are more prevalent, police blitzes can make the roads safer, I believe it would serve this community much more if the police enforced the law that going through a red light is in violation of the Highway Traffic Act.

This conduct is in epidemic proportions throughout this city. The police department should place officers at many main and minor intersections, such as Wonderland and Southdale roads, where no one seems to know that it is illegal to go through a red light.

I have been driving in this city for many years and never have I seen such a blatant disregard to the traffic lights as now occurs. When did it become legal for three vehicles to turn left after a light turns red? This causes not only frustration for drivers who have an advanced light, but also causes accidents.

Genevieve Grech

London

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Perilous venture

It is now time to assess the bus rapid transit as it stands. Is it worth the risk? What we do not know is the final route, construction schedule, the impact on all roads and businesses involved, Western University’s position and drive times for car drivers who will never use it. Where are the fact-based ridership increase numbers? How will cost overruns and ridership shortfalls affect taxpayers?

Imagine a private-sector company going with this plan, to a major lending institution seeking a $500 million to $700 million loan. They would be shown the door. Would any of us put our money into such a perilous adventure? No. Yet that is what Mayor Matt Brown and council want you to do.

I can’t believe that there is a guy touring around and lecturing on the evils of illegal smokes. This Gary Grant guy has a pretty good gig.

He says he is not against smoking, but he is against illegal cigarettes. That logic means that if the government permits the sale of smokes and taxes them, then that’s OK.

He’s OK with the state selling smokes that will make you very, very ill and might kill you. When Indigenous People sell “illegal” tobacco products, then they should be thrown in the pen.

There is some really flawed logic happening in his presentation. Who pays this dude’s wages?

Rob Manno

London

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Job fair just a joke

I must agree with Doreen O’Brien’s letter Job fair a waste of time (Jan. 30).

Even though I am working full time, if I am able, I like to attend job fairs just to see what is out there. This job fair was badly organized and in my opinion a complete failure.

I do not feel the screeners were qualified to assign attendees to an employer. And then you only have one interview?

The interview process was a bit of a joke also. You had only 10 minutes for an interview. They simply ask you a couple questions, take your resume and tell you they will give it to the temp agency that does all the hiring for them because they are too busy. So what was the point in having a job fair then?

Any job fair I’ve gone to in the past has been an open concept. You bring about six copies of your resume and can go to any booth and talk to any employer that you feel is a good fit. That was a first for me with the screening process.

Maybe this is why Huron County area has a hard time finding employees if this is how they conduct their job fairs.

It looks like Jim Merriam rounded up all the letters he could find that opposed the minimum wage raise to $15 an hour, and let them speak for him. He ended up with a collection of the kind of misinformation that opponents of Ontario’s workplace reform package have been spreading for past few months.

For example, his readers tell him the wage hike will put workers into a higher tax bracket and the government will claw back the benefits of a higher minimum wage. Not true.

They say there will be big job cuts. Probably not. Seven decades of research shows an increase in the minimum wage does not result in a significant loss of jobs, or a significant rise in prices.

One reader fears small businesses will have to close. Some may indeed close, but they will be ones that rely on the poverty of their employees — not a sustainable business model in the best of times — to make a profit. Small businesses open and close all the time, but usually not because they pay their employees too much.

But Merriam is right about one thing. Workers will continue to push for more. Why? Because $15 an hour is a poverty wage. And poverty costs people decent housing and healthy diets. It pushes up the cost of health care and social services. It depresses wages and tax revenues. According to a report from the Ontario Association of Food Banks, it costs all of us nearly $36 billion.

And because a living wage in Bruce-Grey — a wage that’s more than survival pay and allows people to participate in the economic and social life of their community — is $21.01 an hour.

David McLaren

Neyaashiinigmiing, Ont.

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Religious swipe

The check-box controversy surrounding “cash or beliefs” was a less than subtle swipe at religious institutions by the Liberal government. If this was a measure for the protection of minorities and women’s rights, there was a far better and easier way of doing it.

The government could easily have added a line to the application that read: “Any group or individual that uses the funds from this request to, in any way, harm or disrespect other groups or individuals shall be prevented from receiving any further assistance.”

That way all are protected and all are subject to penalties for any harmful act. To insinuate, as the new check-box does, that if you are religious you cannot be fair and understanding, without the threat of penalty, is an affront.

This was never about prevention or protection. It was another action in the ongoing efforts of the Liberal government to subject Canadians to their pretentious progressive beliefs.

Al Gretzky

London

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Moral right?

The Liberal government’s recent decision to place restrictions on grants from the Canada Summer Jobs program — and a slew of associated columns and letters to the editor — relies on a specific interpretation of the human rights contained in our Charter of Rights, namely that abortion on demand is a right.

Many countries around the world have human-rights laws essentially identical to our own, and yet do not interpret those provisions to mean unrestricted access to abortion. Most allow abortion at a woman’s request for a certain period of time, after which medical exceptions are required. In fact, the only countries that offer unrestricted access to abortion are China, North Korea, Vietnam and Canada.

While Canada is of course free to interpret human-rights law differently than everyone else, it seems close-minded and against our country’s goal of multiculturalism to insist that our interpretation is the only morally correct one.

Adam Shirley

London

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Slap in the face

Regarding the article National anthem lyrics to change (Feb. 1).

O Canada has its origins in the French language anthem by Sir Adolfe-Basile Routhier titled Chant National. The lyrics to the English-language version that we sing today were written in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir. In that version, the line read: “True patriot love thou dost in us command.”

The women’s suffrage movement was at its most militant and controversial in 1913. In that year, the lyrics were changed to “in all thy sons command” as a slap in the face to all the woman who believed they had a right to vote. As far back as the 1950s, Canadians were asking that the lyrics return to “us.”

As a female, I have always been uncomfortable with the word “sons,” eliminating and ignoring half our population. That the Conservative senators and most of its MPs would object to reverting to the original “us” in the year 2018 is absolutely shocking.

Donna Robinson

London

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Stingy support

This is the third straight year I have felt compelled to thank the government for its underwhelming generosity regarding our CPP and OAS. This year CPP was increased some 1.5 per cent. OAS was increased 0.8 per cent. That means that in the past three years CPP has gone up an average of 1.3 per cent. OAS on the other hand increased an average of 0.3 per cent.

Now, if that doesn’t make someone all warm and fuzzy, I don’t know what would. Thankfully our cost of living didn’t go up at all, did it ? I know that one of the many platforms Justin Trudeau ran on was pension reform. Well, great job so far, Liberals. Can’t wait for the next election.

Just to make things easy, let’s say the budget of London Health Sciences Centre is $1 billion.

One per cent of that budget is $10 million. One half of a per cent of that budget is $5 million. Can anyone see where I’m going with this?

The money needed to keep the Cardiac Fitness Centre open is at the small end of a fraction of a per cent of the budget.

There’s a lot being said by those in charge but in the end they just have no interest in keeping it open anymore. It’s obviously not the money.

Or maybe it is? Three hundred thousand dollars is a nice bonus. I hope that’s not the case. But wherever that money goes, I hope the recipients keep in mind who is actually paying the price.

Any of you wondering what the actual percentage is? It’s .03 per cent.

David Dufton

London

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Words matter

On the Quebec mosque murder anniversary, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Canadians to condemn acts of racism and to take a stand against Islamophobia and discrimination in all its forms.

Words indeed matter. “Islamophobia,” unlike “anti-Muslim bigotry,” is a word that was coined to beat down critics of Islam, and is the term used to describe an irrational fear of Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force. Often, however, the term Islamophobia is used as a snarl word to dismiss valid criticisms, or simple concerns, about Islamic doctrines and ideology.

By squelching open and free discussion about Islamic doctrines, especially by reformist Muslims, the PM’s continued parroting of the term Islamophobia will ensure that mutual understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims will never emerge. Criticism is the trigger to enabling real change in Muslim minds.